JUNE 28, 2017 OUR GROUP 23 OF MORNING HOTSHOTS

Let us never fear needed change. Certainly we have to discriminate between changes for worse and changes for better. But once a need becomes clearly apparent in an individual, in a group, or in A.A. as a whole, it has long since been found out that we cannot stand still and look the other way. The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.

GRAPEVINE, JULY 1965

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The beauty of independence,

departure, actions that rely on themselves.

Walt Whitman

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DAILY REFLECTIONS

JUNE 28

THE DETERMINATION OF OUR FOUNDERS

A year and six months later these three had succeeded with

seven more.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 159

If it had not been for the fierce determination of our

founders, A.A. would have quickly faded like so many

other so-called good causes. I look at the hundreds of

meetings weekly in the city where I five and I know A.A. is

available twenty-four hours a day. If I had had to hang on

with nothing but hope and a desire not to drink,

experiencing rejection wherever I went, I would have

sought the easier, softer way and returned to my previous

way of life. ===========================

We are intelligent beings living in an intelligent universe that responds to our mental states, and insofar as we learn to control those mental states, we shall automatically control our environment. This is what is meant by the practical application of the principles of Science of Mind to the problems of everyday living. This is what is meant by demonstration.

Naturally our first thought is that we would like to demonstrate health of body, peace of mind, prosperity in our affairs, to neutralize a circumstance which is unhappy, or to attract to ourself some good which we have not been enjoying. Such a desire is natural and in every way normal, and the possibility of such demonstration already exists within the mind of every living soul. Every one of us has within ourself the power to consciously cooperate with the spiritual side of our existence in such a way that it will create for us a new body and a new environment and a greater happiness. But the greatest good which this philosophy of life brings to us is a sense of certainty, a sense of the reality of our own soul, of the continuity of our own individualized being, and the relationship of this self to the great Whole.Ernest Holmes

“There is no death. The Son of God is free. Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.”

The ego would have me believe that the time that we would be one with our Source is a long way off. The lesson today tells us that now we are one with God, Who is our Source. We are one now. I find it is helpful to think about that. We all are one with God now. God is Where we came from and God is Where we are now. Our real dwelling place is in Heaven with God. And we dwell in Heaven now with God. I find it helpful to think about the fact that we all are in Heaven now. We are all joined as one, now. It is not off in the future, but now.

Holy Spirit, I open my mind to You, that I may remember I am still one with my Source. I am still in Heaven along with everyone. There has never been any separation. I open my mind to You so I may remember this when I feel frustrated or afraid. I open my mind to You so Your healing Light will shine away all my false ideas of limitation and belief in a world of time and space.

Help my willingness to recognize the eternal truth. The Son of God is still one in God. The Life we all live in God is eternal happiness. Let me not try to make something else real. Help me lay down my foolish dreams of being separate from God and my brother. The Son of God is still one with God. All That God created is still Love and nothing else. Holy Spirit, thank You for holding the Light and helping my foolish dreams fall away. Thank You.

God is eternal Life. The belief in death is an attempt to limit God and therefore is a fantasy that could never be true. All the things I see in the world that seem to have the potential to harm me or change me in any way are symbols of belief in death. They represent the idea that it is possible to change God.

If I remain one with an unchangeable, eternal Source, then it is impossible I could be changed. I am as changeless as my Source. As I allow myself to fully accept this fact, it brings me great comfort. In truth I am invulnerable. There is nothing to fear. There is nothing to feel guilty about because I have not done the impossible. I have not changed God nor His Son. My brother, Who is the Son of God along with me, shares the Son’s invulnerability, his changelessness. Therefore I could no more harm my brother than I could be harmed. There is no death. The Son of God is free.

As I can fully accept this idea, I can forgive myself for what I thought I did but which never happened. As I release myself, I release my brother, for I no longer feel a need to project my perceived guilt upon another.

My perfect safety lies in my oneness with my Source. Here there is no death. Here there is no limitation. I am free. I need not worry about what may come tomorrow nor fear consequences of something I think happened in the past. I am perfectly safe now in my changeless, eternal Source. My Source is my Home and I am free.

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When you make up your mind to do good things, you will accomplish them if you use dynamic will power to follow through. No matter what the circumstances are, if you go on trying, God will create the means by which your will shall find its proper reward. This is the truth Jesus referred to when he said: “If ye have faith, and doubt not,…if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done.” If you continuously use your will power, no matter what reverses come, it will produce success and health and power to help people, and above all, it will produce communion with God.Paramahansa Yogananda

About Ernest Holmes part 6

The majority of the following material on the life of Ernest Holmes was gathered from a booklet entitled, Path of Discovery written by Rev. Scott Awbrey (scott@revscottawbrey.com) and published by United Church of Religious Science and used with permission.

FIRST MAJOR INFLUENCE – THE DISCOVERY OF EMERSON (1907)

While Ernest Holmes was visiting his brother, William, who had been a psychology student at Yale University and who had written on metaphysical subjects in school, he discovered a copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays. He read the book thoroughly over the next two days and a light came on for him. Another of Ernest’s brothers, Fenwicke, wrote of the incident years later. “It was at that moment that life really began for Ernest Holmes,” Fenwicke wrote. “He had entered the foreground of the Idea.”

Ernest Holmes not only read Emerson but he also talked with much excitement about Emerson’s ideas. It was the idea of an independence of mind that Ernest found so rich and vital in Emerson’s writings. The poet emphasized nonconformity, which Ernest loved, for independence had been Ernest’s trademark almost his entire life.

“Be yourself,” Emerson wrote. “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Ernest Holmes was 20 years old when he first read those words and he reveled in the spiritual freedom that Emerson offered.

Emerson said, “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across the mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.” When Ernest Holmes read these words he knew he would not be afraid to recognize his inner genius and would dedicate his life to help bring out that same inner genius in all people.

“Reading Emerson was like drinking water to me,” Ernest once said. “I have studied him all my life. Reading Emerson for the first time, the first half-dozen lectures or essays, gave me a realization that in a certain sense every man has to interpret the universe in terms of his own thinking and personal relationships, and that in order to do it, he has to have faith and confidence in his own interpretation.”

This “individual interpretation” was a theme by which Ernest Holmes lived. Although he chose his own spiritual path and never veered from it, he was tolerant of the opinions and beliefs of others. He never criticized another person’s ideas.

“Every man becomes his own philosophy, his own institution, and what he has is conditioned by what he is. You are married to your soul for better or worse, for richer or poorer for life and death now and forever; and sometimes that thought frightened me; I didn’t always like myself, but I couldn’t get a divorce!”

Ernest Holmes believed that people share universality with all of life and that this unification gives all people a divine participation. “You yourself are an individualization of this thing,” he said. “There is a depth and meaning to your own being; if you can discover it, it will answer your own questions.”

With his discovery of Emerson, Ernest’s studies intensified. His quest for the truth led him to literature, art, science, philosophy, and religion. “I am my own authority. My reason and my intuition are as equal value with any other person.”

At this time Ernest Holmes was bothered by a nagging throat irritation. He came to believe it was caused by his concerns about how others might see him. He was worried about the opinions of others when he expressed his views. “Emerson taught me,” he said, “that I must have faith and confidence in my own interpretation of the universe and my relation to it.”

Now that he wasn’t afraid to voice his convictions, the throat irritation disappeared.” For the first time in my life I thought that whatever my purpose was, was due to something already within me.”

“It’s not that God has a purpose for us but that you and I have a purpose in God. You can’t escape the fact that you are here, something has to be done and you are the only one who can do anything about it”

Ernest Holmes did not believe in pink cloud metaphysics. The relative world exists as a factual reality. It is not an illusion. “The answer to life is not to develop a metaphysical system to explain why God is good but to live here and now in the goodness of God.”